chapter 8 Flashcards
these features exist in every society
marriage, kinship, family universal
Marriage
a socially approved union between two or more adult partners that regulates the sexual and economic rights and obligations between them.
rise Romantic love
came during the rise of individualism, democracy reinforces the notion of love, before this time marriages were functional
why people get married
sexual divisions of labour, legitimates children, economic and political considerations (people marry like), extends social relationships, status/social class if you marry into a higher class, duty, to survive-green cards
Functions of marriage
- regulating mating,
- child rearing in a socially approved way
- regulating division of labour (who does what)
- creates a set of family relationships that can provide for the material, educational and emotional needs of children
- legitimizes children- more so 50 years ago
- support unite- children (free labour),
- defines social position of individuals- adulthood
- establishes legal rights and interests
previous common law definition
lawful union of one man and one woman
recent common law definition
lawful union of two persons to the exclusion of all others (exclusivity- concept of marriage)
Monogamy
having only one spouse at a time
serial monogamy
the practice of having a succession of marriage partners, but only one at a time
reasons to avoid marriage
- fewer people in organized religion and not as pressured
- debts are high and marriage is expensive
- career pressures and expectations
exogamy
marriage outside a specified social/kinship group- not marrying direct relatives
endogamy
marriage within one’s own specified social/kinship group
preferential cousin marriages
a preferred from of marriage between either parallel (kids of aunt or uncle) or cross cousins (children of your mother’s brothers or your father’s sisters)
reasons for preferential cousin marriages
- strengthening family ties etc.
Incest taboo
biological- genetic defects of children
psychological- family outside yours, you might not get along with your family
sociological- disrupts roles within the family, creates sexual completion within the family, marrying outside increases alliances and social ties.
sexual union
outside of marriage, a society may not accept sexual relationships
post-partum taboo
husband and wife must abstain from any sexual activity for a period of time after the birth of child
economic or political factors in marriage
bride price, status, merging between nations, power in allocation of labour
bride price
bride wealth most common in patrilineal descent systems, tendency to pay for the loss of labour, presence, and fertility of the woman.
Dowry
the transfer of goods or money from the bride’s family to bridegroom or the groom’s family
marriage comes with a transfer of rights and obligations
- right to labour of men and women
- right to property
- rights to the priority of sexual access
- rights over fertility
Divorce
the legal and formal dissolution of a marriage
divorce and kinship ties
- divorce rates tend to be lower in societies that have strong kinship ties
- high bride wealth makes for stable marriage, and where bride price is low, divorce is more common
Levirate
the practice of a man marrying the widow of his deceased brother
Sororate
if a wife dies, her lineage may be contractually obliged to provide a replacement, i.e her sister, brother’s daughter, or some other close relative
Nuer ghost marriage
a nuer woman whose husband has died remains subject to a legal contract through which rights to her children were transferred to ther husband’s group, they could marry the ghost of a dead husband to keep their rights
family
social unit consisting of both adults and children who have legal rights and obligations to one another
Postpartum sex taboo
the rule that a husband and wife must abstain from any sexual activity for a period of time after the birth of a child
biological reasons against incest
- avoid genetic defects in the children
psychological reasons against incest
- better to marry outside the marriage if you have bad relations with your family
sociological reasons against incest
- increases alliances between families, avoids inter-family tension, avoids family role confusion
polygamy
having two or more spouses
polyandry
marriage of a woman to two or more men
polygyny
marriage of a man to two or more women
polyamory
have sexual relations with 3 or more people at the same time
More on polygyny
- having two or more wifes is a sign of prestige and status
- economic and political wealth
- children and more wives are labour and economic wealth
- more wives means more prestige
sororal polygyny
man marrying sisters or close relatives in addition to first wife
fraternal polyandry
group of brothers marry one woman
reasons for polyandry
- limiting the population
- avoiding continuous splitting of land (it stays within the family)
bride wealth
compensation given upon marriage by the family of the groom to the family
patrilocal residence
the married couple lives with or near the relatives of the husband’s father
Matrilocal residence
the married couple lives with or near the relatives of the wife
Avunculocal residence
the married couple lives with or near the husband’s mother’s brother
Ambilocal residence
the couple has a choice of living with either side of the family
neolocal residence
couple establishes independent place of residence away from either side
3 stages of a nuclear family
- marry/cohabitate
- children/ children grew and leave
- parents die and end the nuclear family
Kinship
relationship based on blood or marriage
beginning of modern anthropology understanding of geneology
Torress Straight Expedition undertaken by W.H.R Rivers
functions of kinship
- directs allocation of resources
- directs how certain relationships are formed
- Connects different groups together
- determines where people live
- limits sexual and marital activity
two main types of kiniship
consanguineal relatives- relative through birth or blood
affinal relatives- relative through marriage
Fictive Kinship
relationship among individuals who recognize kinship obligations but are not related either cong. or affinal
2 classification of kinship ties
kin types and kin terms
kin types
universal terms anthropologists use to refer to particular individuals in a kinship system
kin terms
names that are assigned by different cultures to particular categories of relatives
what are the 8 things included kinship classification
- generation
- gender
- lineality vs. collaterality
- consanguineal vs. affinal
- age
- sex of connecting relatives(mother’s brother and father’s brother)
- social conditions (different kinship term used for a married brother vs. a single one)
- side of the family
6 historical kinship classifications used by anthropologists
- inuit system
- Iroquois system
- Hawaiian
- Omaha
- Sudanese
- Crow
inuit kiniship system
descent of both the male and female is considered, based on the nuclear family
Iroquois system
- distinguishes between same-sex and cross-sex parental siblings
- focuses on unilineal descent
unilineal descent
descent traced through either a male line or female line but not both (matrilineal vs patrilineal) and tends to reduce ambiguity among groups
descent
a person’s kinship connections traced back by a number of generations
two categories of descent
unilineal and cognatic
descent group
who we descended from creates the basis of the social groups we occupy
Lineage
a unilineal descent group in which members can trace their ancestry back to a common founder
clan
unilineal descent group whose members believe they are all related to a common ancestor but can not trace back step by step back to the common ancestor
6 characteristics of unilineal descent groups
- shapes identity- last name
- regulate marriage- who can marry who and both sides of the family must agree
- political function- elders settle disputes within the family
- property is regulated to descent groups not the individual
- descent groups have their own set of religious deities
- justice- when an individual is hurt the lineage or descent group will seek compensation
three types of multilineal descent
double descent
ambilineal descent
bilateral descent
Double descent
system of descent in which individual receive some rights and obligations from the father’s side of the family and others from the mother’s side
Ambilineal descent
parents choose to affiliate children with whichever kinship group is most advantageous
Bilateral descent
descent system where mother’s kin and fathers kin are relatively equal
characteristics of bilateral
- equality
- hard to trace descent
- hard to mobilize many family members
- unstructured
Modern day view of kinship
- system is changing because of globalization and technological impact
function of bride price
- establish a continuing relationship between the families
- public marriage transaction/makes the marriage legit
- power transfer- as the man has to pledge allegiance to the elders of the woman’s kin.
